The essential task of sharpening students' sensitivities may be facilitated by the curriculum, instructional program, and personnel of the school. Aesthetic education is basic because it is founded on the creative integration of sensing, feeling, intuiting, and thinking. The arts curriculum may be used to sharpen students' awareness and sensitivities, and may encourage increased aesthetic awareness and understanding by use of the critical/appreciative model. Students ponder what is unusual about a particular work through such exploratory questions as why the work is important, under what constraints the artist was working, and what individual responses the student feels toward the work; such questions draw the student into participation through inquiry. Implications for teachers, administrators, and counselors include the following: establish a conducive environment for exploration of aesthetic appreciation; foster philosophical and contemporary aesthetics education in the teacher education curriculum; provide education for the arts educator to view aesthetics beyond his or her own discipline; use aesthetics systems education to teach about aesthetics systems of different cultures; and provide opportunities for students to share their aesthetic experiences. (DF)